Continued from page 12
strike. So you’ve got to be ready for it.”
With producer John Fields playing bass,
Change began to take shape in Los Angeles
sessions before being built up, piecemeal,
in Bland and Pirner’s private facilities. And
and just like that, it just started to actually
happen. An entire Dylan album has been
our ongoing project for a little while now.”
How does Pirner twiddle all the various
knobs in his back yard? Jokingly, he calls
his studio system ‘idiot proofing.’ He has
08•2016
Dave Pirner and Michael Bland
20 illinoisentertainer.com august 2016
there’s a spark to the new songs, a fire
burning in the funky “Cool,” a chugging
“Supersonic,” the anthemic Apocalypsethemed “Doomsday,” and the hugecrescendoed “Moonshine.” It gallops, fulltilt, like Soul Asylum did so perfectly in its
definitive 1992 breakthrough hit “Runaway
Train.” “I always used to hate the term
‘recording artist,’ and it’s funny – they
don’t really use it much anymore,” says
Pirner, who has also welcomed bassist
Winston Royce and guitarist Justin
Sharbono to the ranks. “But you do learn
how to do things over the years, and technology, like Pro Tools, has taken things into
a whole new stretch.”
The singer and Bland can E-mail files
back and forth, adding individual parts as
needed until a song is built up from scratch
into a trademark rabble-rousing anthem
(Bland’s powerhouse percussion naturally
playing a huge part in every mix). And
ideas can take shape virtually out of the
blue. Not long ago, Bland asked his chum
how much he adored Bob Dylan. “And I
said, ‘Yeah, I *love* Dylan! We should do a
whole record of his songs!’ Michael agreed,
an engineer that will properly set up all of
his equipment for him. “And my vision
was a clap-on, clap-off system, where I
walk into the room and I clap and all the
mikes turn on, and it’s ready to go,” he
adds. “So it’s really set up for an idiot. I
don’t do a lot of fancy engineering, but
everything is just plugged in the way that I
like it. And I can operate it, and that’s the
whole point. And if I can’t operate it, I get
extremely frustrated. Because, again, when
you’ve got something going on and you
need to get it recorded, you don’t want to
be looking for a cord or trying to figure out
where to plug something in. Because by the
time you get all that set up, you’ve lost the
mojo for the idea that was so pressing.”
Pirner is justifiably proud of the mojo he
and Bland continue to share. And he’s a tad
embarrassed by the sudden cachet that these
mysterious Prince tapes have added to his
name. He first got the news in a text from his
flabbergasted brother. “And in his message,
he said, ‘It’s in a secret vault!’” he concludes,
laughing, “And I said, ‘Well, I guess it’s not
secret anymore!’’”
Tom Lanham